Chapter 148: Cart Battle

Chapter 148: Cart Battle

Lake was making good progress chasing down the cart, he was pretty sure he would be able to see them soon and them having stopped after a while of him chasing them was probably the reason he had been able to get as close as he was. He was a little worried about why they had stopped though.

There were good reasons they could have stopped but he felt like there was a good chance something had happened to the cart that had made them abandon it. If this turned out to be the reason that meant he would not only have to return to Grundam with the bad news but he would have to go looking for some more bandits after spending so much time looking for the ones he was currently after. The source of this content is N0veII_bIn

Cresting a hill, Lake finally made eye contact with the cart. Like he already knew, it was motionless on the road and he could also tell there were no longer any people anywhere near it. Once he finally got to it after checking the surroundings for people using Mana Vision Lake saw whatever had been pulling the cart was also gone.

That meant the cart was useless and unless he found the seven people who had taken it before they ate the horse or whatever those three people he had spoken to earlier were going to be living in that forest for a long time. After looking inside the cart to see if anything was inside it, Lake started to look around for any signs of where the bandits had gone.

Finding some tracks that lead away from the road, Lake started to follow them but looking in the direction they went he couldn't really see anything other than a small hill. As he was following the tracks he started to see a few animal tracks every now and then that gave him hope he wasn't too late to save the cart puller.

Getting close to the hill, Lake slowed down and approached while using Mana Vision. "There we go." Lake could see cores moving around on the other side of the hill so he sped up slightly and got ready for the fight but as he was getting closer he started to see more and more cores. Once he was standing right next to the hill there were around thirty cores and all of them were up and moving around.

It wasn't really a problem though it was just with this many people the fight would be a lot harder to control even if they were all weak, some would probably get away as well and with this many there was a chance there would be someone who was as strong as he was. Wanting to get a look at them, Lake crept up the hill and peaked over to see families eating.

He didn't have the time to drag it back to Grundam and he had already wasted like an hour on this mission he had been given. He also thought that even if he did get the cart back to Grundam it would just end up being stolen again especially if it still had its horse so then not getting it back was for the best. They would be happy in the woods surrounded by food and family.

...

After a while of running down the road Lake saw another group of trees large enough to be a forest and headed towards it. It was demoralizing to have to start all over again but he had learned from the mistakes he had made last time. If he saw any people who needed his help he would just ignore them.

It didn't take long for Lake to find evidence of people in the forest. There had clearly been a large encampment here in this forest but like last time they were already gone. There was a big difference between this encampment and the last one though. He could clearly see cart tracks here and while all they told him they were using the same road he was to travel that meant this forest was empty and he could move on.

Plus with how fast he was these days he was starting to get far enough from the capital that there would start to be monsters he could kill while looking around the woods for people to kill. He was probably already a third of the way to the capital wall and if it was his goal to get there he would make it before nightfall.

Getting back onto the road, Lake started to run again before stopping because he felt a little hungry. There was no reason to not eat something as he moved so after getting some of his meat out he started to walk at a normal pace. As he was walking, Lake couldn't help but wonder what the odds were of him being robbed now that he was looking like a normal person who was just taking a walk.

He had been pretty good about using Mana Vision on his surroundings while he ran but he was going so fast there was a chance he had missed a few robbers that had been waiting by the road for people to come by. They had probably missed him all well because most people couldn't see him when he was moving at his top speed.

That being said, what were the odds he had missed all of them? What was more likely was most people had already made it away from the capital and the few he had found were just stragglers who had been unsuccessful in their attempt to leave the capital for whatever reason.

Looking ahead, Lake finally saw something that wasn't just more road or wilderness; it seemed he had found a town and since he was heading there anyway he might as well see if there were any people out and about. He was heading away from the direction the armies had come from so he felt there was a good chance he could find someone to talk to and if he was lucky he could ask them about bandits or monsters he could kill.